1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to computer software and, more specifically, to a method and system for bimanual interactions on digital paper using a digital pen and a spatially-aware mobile projector.
2. Description of the Related Art
The field of augmented reality has demonstrated the interesting properties which arise from augmenting physical artifacts with virtual imagery. In particular, there are many benefits in overlaying virtual information in situ of physical environments when a digital system is aware of its location. This idea has been extended with different display and tracking technologies to not only visualize, but also to manipulate virtual imagery in the context of a physical environment. Paper has been one of the most popular mediums to virtually augment due to its unique physical properties such as ubiquity, mobility, and scalability.
Recently, virtual interactions on paper gained further interest due to the introduction of emerging digital pen technologies such as Anoto®. An Anoto®-based digital pen can capture and interpret, via a camera embedded therein, what users write onto surfaces. When combined with visual feedback, the pen can serve as a proxy to access virtual information associated with the physical paper. The virtual information can then be updated on paper and the next iteration begins. Depending on the properties of the visual feedback, different virtual interactions on paper are possible. One example is AutoDesk's® PenLight, described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/537,013, entitled “A Spatially-Aware Projection Pen,” which simulates a mobile projector mounted on a digital pen and allows a dynamic visual overlay to be displayed on top of a surface. This increases the “functionality” of the paper, allowing a user to interact with virtual content such as ink and auxiliary data. Though PenLight's integration of pen input and projector output into a single device improves the mobility of the device, it disadvantageously fixes the pen tip to a single point within the projected image. As a result, users cannot make annotations and overlay virtual content independent of one another.